In my second Joker-related-school-project post of the week, I thought I'd share a paper from my class on memory in which I analyzed the famous graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke. Enjoy.
The
Mind of a Madman
“All it takes is one bad day to reduce the
sanest man alive to lunacy.”
The
Joker, Batman: The Killing Joke.
In his classic 1988 graphic novel, Batman: The Killing Joke, author Alan Moore analyzed the mindset of
the Dark Knight’s psychotic arch nemesis, the Joker. In doing so, Moore created
a tragic origin for the super villain, depicting him as a once normal person
until a series of unfortunate events led to his clown like disfigurement and a
psychotic break, becoming the homicidal maniac people recognize him as today.
While the Joker remembers some events throughout the story, he is implied to be
an unreliable narrator, and admits his own uncertainty as to how he became the
way he is. The only thing certain is that the Joker went through a traumatic
experience that drove him insane and forget the life he had before. Such a
concept is analyzed by Maria I. Medved
and Jens Brockmeier in their article “Continuity Amid Chaos: Neurotrauma, Loss
of Memory, and Sense of Self.” They examine the idea of neurotrauma, which is
how the brains of people who experience it become “strange” and their sense of
self is changed. While only a fictional character, the Joker, as depicted by
Moore, is not only a prime example of how neurotrauma can drastically alter a
person’s mind, but that he may deserve the reader’s sympathy, given he did go
through something horrific to become what he is now.
According to Medved and Brockmeier, people who are
afflicted with mental illness and disability eventually experience a crisis, a
threat not only one’s self and identity, but also their changed view of the
world (Medved 469). Some individuals have found that narrative helps them sort
out and find meaning within these changes (Medved 469). Narrative can also be
seen as instructions of what and what not to do in life as a way to integrate a
person back into normal society (Medved 469). Also referred to as “restitution
stories”, narratives are believed to help a person restore their former selves
at some point (Medved 470). However, others who may have difficulty working
retrieving their former self experience in “chaos narratives” and “quest
stories”, the latter of which being when a person’s illness creates a new
identity for them (Medved 470). This neurotrauma can be the result of some
affliction to a certain area of the brain, and in turn diminish one’s ability
to remember and narrate, which can radically alter any attempt an identity
construction (Medved 470). The brains of such individuals become
transmogrified, strange, and acquire new habits (Medved 470). Even then, there
could be some sentimental value for the “lost self”, even though they may not
know exactly who that was (Medved 470). Essentially, Medved and Brockmeier
insinuate that recovery of the mind and sense of self following a traumatic
experience can only be done so by the person directly affected, as long as they
are actually willing and able to open the door to their past.
In relation to the Joker, however, it seems he would not
care for Medved and Brockmeier’s ideas about recovery. He has his own feelings
towards memory and madness:
Remembering’s
dangerous. I find the past such a worrying place […] Memories can be vile,
repulsive little brutes […] But can we live without them? Memories are what our
reason is based upon. If we can’t face them, we deny reason itself! Although,
why not? We aren’t contractually tied down to rationality! […] Madness is the
emergency exit…you can just step outside and close the door on all those
dreadful things that happened.
The
Joker, Batman: The Killing Joke.
It is not just that
Joker does not want to look back at his past, but that he is unable to remember
it correctly. Quite specifically, he cannot recall quite exactly how he became
the Joker in the first place: “Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes
another…If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!”
(Moore). He revels in his inability to remember his exact former self.
To Medved and Brockmeier, the decreased self-awareness
may not because of where there the brain is afflicted, but the “number […] of
the lesions” that are associated with it (Medved 470). According to the Joker’s
supposed origin, he had “one bad day” that drove him “as crazy as a coot”
(Moore). He was once a struggling comedian who joined up with a couple of
criminals to pull a heist at the chemical plant he used to work in order to
have enough money to provide for his wife and future child (Moore). However, on
the night of the heist, he was informed by the police beforehand that an
electrical short had killed his wife and unborn child; he tried to pull out of
the heist so he could, but stayed in due to threats from the two criminals
(Moore). Everything went wrong in the heist though, as both criminals were shot
by security, their blood splattering on the comedian, and the appearance of
Batman scared him enough to jump into a vat of chemical that would drain
outside the plant to escape (Moore). Once outside, he found that the chemicals
had bleached his skin white and his hair green, and the shock of his appearance
caused him to laugh uncontrollably (Moore). Losing his family, the fear of
being killed himself, and his disfigurement could be considered the lesions
that caused Joker’s decreased self-awareness, with so much happening to him
that he cracked under the pressure. Trying to prove that this could happen to
anyone, he attempted to do the same to Commissioner Gordon, by shooting
Gordon’s daughter Barbara pointblank, kidnapping him, stripping him down nude,
and forcibly showing him pictures he took of the wounded Barbara he also
stripped down (Moore). Gordon would be unresponsive to the Joker afterwards,
but was revealed to retain his sanity once Batman came to the rescue. If Joker
had succeeded in driving Gordon mad though, the events he was put through would
have been the lesions responsible for his trauma.
Of the three types of narrative Medved and Brockmeier go
over, the ones that would most relate to the Joker are the “chaos narrative”
and the “quest story.” The “chaos narrative” is when an individual has “little
discernible narrative order” that “makes it difficult for the sick to reflect
on their illness experience” (Medved 470). As the Joker prefers to have a
“multiple choice past” and admits to not being sure what happened to him, it
shows he has difficulty creating an exact narrative of the traumatic experience
that made him who he is. In addition, the “quest story”, as stated before, is
described as when “people claim that their illnesses or disabilities have
produced new identities” (Medved 470). Comparing the present day Joker to the
supposed comedian he was before, one can see there are drastic differences in
their characters. The comedian was a timid person only committing a crime to
help his family, fearful for his life and of Batman; The Joker, on the other
hand, takes joy in his crimes and the people he harms, as well as a fascination
with Batman instead of a fear (Moore). The drastic change this man undergoes
greatly demonstrates the idea of a radically altered identity and a
transmogrified brain.
While the Joker hates the idea of thinking about his
past, his mind does seem to go there, as he has stated to remember it in
different ways. This shows that he may have some, as Medved and Brockmeier have
described, sentimental value of the life he had before, even if he cannot
exactly recall what it was like. Even though the personalities of the Joker and
the comedian are radically different, there are small similarities between the
two. The man who would be Joker quit his job at the chemical plant to become a
comedian, but was not very successful in his endeavors (Moore). Essentially,
the man wanted to make people laugh. The Joker would also want to make people
laugh, but with more lethal and psychological methods (Moore). To be more
precise, Joker wants to make people see the world as a “black awful joke” the
way he does and drive them as mad as he is, just as he tried to do with Gordon
(Moore). In comparison, the comedian in an upset fit after an unsuccessful job
interview thought his wife was accusing him of not being serious and treating
their financial and living situation as a “big joke” (Moore). While the
comedian saw life as serious and wanted to bring laughter into it, the Joker sees
life as a big joke and wants to share the punch line with people by bringing
them down to his level. The individual’s mindset may have changed vastly, but
his goal remains the same in some way.
While Medved and Brockmeier believe that narrative can
help restore a person’s former self after their mind has an experience of
neurotrauma, it is ultimately up to the individual themselves to recover what
they lost. By the end of The Killing Joke,
once the Joker’s plan is thwarted and has nothing else to play, he surrenders
himself to Batman (Moore). In a moment of mercy, Batman pleads with the Joker
to end the long war between the two of them that will most likely lead to both
their deaths, offering to help the Joker in his rehabilitation and give him a
normal life (Moore). In response, a seemingly remorseful Joker feels that it is
“too late for that” (Moore). As Medved and Brockmeier point out, an individual
may “[feel] uneasy being labeled as ‘brain-damaged,’ because they [believe]
that this [would] further [negate] their sense of self” (Medved 471). The Joker
may see accepting Batman’s help as an admission that something is wrong with
himself, and goes against his claims that an escape from memory into madness
brings about enlightenment. He would rather stay in that state of mind than
recall the life he had before and whatever tragic event changed him so.
The ideas of Medved and Brockmeier are certainly
applicable to the mindset of the Joker depicted by Moore in The Killing Joke. The one aspect both
pieces demonstrate is that the mind can be fragile and certain events can
drastically alter who a person is and how their memory works. Despite all the
terrible things he does, the Joker does deserve some sympathy, as it is assumed
that he did live a normal life until that “one bad day.” While there is hope
for a person to put the pieces of their former life back together, the process
can only come from within, if they are willing to. For the Joker, he feels he
is too far gone. The person he once was, whoever that may have been, cannot be
revived.
Works
Cited
Medved,
Maria I., and Jens Brockmeier. "Continuity Amid Chaos: Neurotrauma, Loss
of Memory, and Sense of Self." Qualitative Health Research. 18.469
(2008): 469-479. Print.
Moore,
Alan. Batman: The Killing Joke. New York: DC Comics, 1988. Print.
